Introduction – Part 1

About the lecture

In this module, we provide a broad introduction to the social, historical and cultural context to the novel, focusing in particular on: (i) the title of the novel – why is the ‘strange case’ of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?; (ii) the other novels that Stevenson wrote in this period, their immense popularity, and their relation to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; (iii) the influence of Darwin and his theory of evolution, and the idea that man has something animalistic in his nature; (iv) the influence on Stevenson of James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824); (v) the post-Reformation religious history of Scotland, especially the importance of Calvinism and Manicheanism; and (vi) the interest in Victorian novels in the contradiction between surface respectability and what lies beneath.

About the lecturer

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies and Teaching Associate in the School of English at Nottingham University, and holds Visiting Professorships in China, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. He is co-author of The Routledge History of Literature in English with Ron Carter, and also wrote The Language of Poetry, Literature with a Small 'l' and the first critical edition of Teleny by Oscar Wilde and others.